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“What is your name, girl?”

She lifts her chin and answers clearly, “Dawsyn Sabar.”

“And who of my court favors this bait? Step forward!”

Immediately, Glacians from all corners come before the King, kneeling at his feet. At least a dozen Glacians, ready to tear and gouge and rip her apart. Last to join them is Ryon, the strange Glacian, whose wings, as large as any other, match the hue of his skin.

“Ryon?” the King queries, his eyebrows raised in amusement. “You wish to hunt the girl?”

Ryon only nods while others titter. It is clear they share the King’s bemused sentiment.

The King chuckles. “Very well, half-breed. You’ve surprised me thus far.”

The King proceeds to select three other Glacians kneeling before him, seemingly at random, his eyes barely glancing their way.

Dawsyn eyes them, larger than her by at least a foot, muscles rippling beneath their marble skin – the beasts who will soon be set upon her.

“Now,” the King proclaims, “before the hunt, we drink!”

CHAPTERNINE

The slopes are unending. Sheer drops and uneven plateaus as far as the night lets her eyes travel. Dawsyn stands shackled at the exit of a tunnel and looks out at the mountain plummeting away from her feet, down into a place she does not know.

“I hope that skin is as thick as your skull,” a voice in her ear grunts. “No fun at all if you freeze before you’re found.”

With that, Jorst unlocks her manacles and thrusts her out into the open air, her feet already slipping on the precarious descent.

The blast of a horn sounds, its eruption disturbing the birds from their nests. Dawsyn desperately stumbles forward, fighting to find her footing. The icy air stabs the back of her throat.

She runs.

The overly long and moth-eaten dress she wears does nothing to aid her. Gerrot brought the damned thing to her cell only minutes before, under the instruction of the winged pricks, she imagines. She almost laughed at the sight of it. Dawsyn hasn’t worn a dress a day in her life. But within its folds, Dawsyn uncovered a glimmer of hope. Her ax, still glistening, and her blade. When she looked over to thank Gerrot, he was gone.

As she runs, the ax handle thuds against her lower back. She managed to tear a hole in the dress to holster the neck of the ax and donned the cloak over it. The blade is at her hip, tucked into the seam of the waistline.

There is no blizzard this night and in that, luck sides with her. The wind does not whip her down the slope and against a tree, killing her, nor does it hinder her progress. The same cannot be said for her attire, her wounds, or the bite of the too-small boots she wears.

She hastens through the dark pine forest, so different to that on the Ledge. The trunks are angled precariously on the slopes, disarrayed and unpredictable. Nightfall plays tricks on her eyes. Boulders crop up, hidden beneath snow, and she falls constantly, tumbling down, saved by the powder beneath.

She flies, plummeting down the mountain and still, she knows it will not be enough. What use are her legs against wings? How many minutes has it been? How far has she come? Will she hear the horn when her time is up? When the hunters come?

She growls at her body, at its limitations and begins to search as she runs. A burrow, a cave, somewhere to hide when they come for her. The Glacians cannot be outrun. Her best chance, she knows, is to bide her time.

Another horn sounds and the mountain carries its blast, sending it through the trees, a taunt, goading her. She does not waste energy turning her eyes to the skies. She knows well what those wings sound like; she’ll hear them long before she sees them.

She stifles her panic and searches the forest frantically. Her thighs burn, her shoulders wail at the strain of her pumping arms, but her eyes comb the landscape, unwavering.

There. Ahead.

The base of a pine exposed, the earth below it eroded. It leans over unsteadily, its roots reaching to the earth floor like spindly fingers. It is any wonder it has not fallen. She is a mere fifty feet away. She can hide there before the Glacians come.

A familiar sound steals her breath. The sound of air disturbed, whipped under the leather of wings. They are coming.

She pushes harder, twenty feet away, now ten. The sound comes closer as she slides into the opening of her hiding place, her hip burning as the frost melts through the dress’s fabric and clings to her skin. She rolls over until her stomach hits the cold earth and her eyes dart between the gaps of the tree’s entangled roots. Her breath stops, her heart sinks, and she swears.

From higher up the slope, a perfect dotted line in the snow leads through the trees, over boulders, right to the place where she hides. Her footprints are so clear in the clean-canvased snow; she might as well have left a damned map.

Swooping wind fills her ears and then a jarring thud as two feet slam to the ground. Dawsyn’s stomach turns sick with knowing. A Glacian is outside; he tracked her to this hiding place in mere minutes. She has failed to survive even an hour.